Roman Army Auxiliaries

The Roman Army auxiliaries were lightly-armed soldiers, whom the Romans called velites. Although they were not part of the professional Roman legions, the velites were always attached to a legion cohort to provide it with fighting support as skirmishers to harass, weaken, and hinder the advance of the enemy heavy infantry. Using javelins, bows and arrows, catapults, and slings, the velites' only objective was to do as much damage as possible to the adversary formation before the enemy engaged the Roman legions. Aside from the javelins, they were also armed with a short sword and a dagger. During the Republic, the velites were recruited from Rome's poorest class, also from other neighboring cities in the Italic peninsula.

During the last two centuries of the Republic, the Roman Senate raised forces of specialized troops from Rome and from nearby allied and subject peoples before initiating a military campaign. These forces known as auxiliaries, or velites, fought alongside the legions during active warfare and then they returned home when the military campaign was finished. Augustus, the first Roman emperor, built on this tradition, for he realized the legions remained too few in numbers to carry out their missions alone. Thus, he undertook the task of reorganizing the auxiliaries as an integral and permanent part of the Army as a second branch, with the legion being the first branch of the Army. Therefore, with the new organization under Augustus, Rome began to recruit these forces chiefly from the non-citizen population of far-flung imperial provinces. Auxiliaries came under the command of Roman officers of equestrian rank, but sometimes they obeyed to their own local tribal leaders who worked for Rome.

Under Augustus, auxiliary forces were organized under autonomous cohorts as they were no longer attached to the legion's cohorts. Most of these units consisted of about five hundred men. Auxiliary forces shared bases with and fought alongside the legions not only to provide support, particularly as archers, javelin throwers, and slingers but also to absorb the brunt of the enemy attack. Later, during the reign of emperor Vespasian (69 to 79 AD), the auxiliaries found themselves completely detached from the legions and stationed in different military camps. A standard length of service never materialized under Augustus' reign. Length of service eventually became set at twenty five years. By the early 2nd century AD, during the reign of Hadrian, all foreign auxiliaries were granted Roman citizenship after fifteen years of service.